1 6 RESEARCH IN CHINA. 



Between the meridians 112 and 109 east, Loczy crossed the Ts'in- 

 ling-shan on the highway which connects the valley of the Han with that 

 of the Wei'. In ascending the "Sie-ho" (Siau-ho or Little River) he noted 

 several sections of Paleozoic strata, which were not metamorphosed, rising 

 between basins of Mesozoic deposits. On the north he next observed graph- 

 itic schists, pyritiferous quartzite, and yellow dolomite, which he classes as 

 " submetamorphic Paleozoic schists." The description of them* corresponds 

 closely with rocks which we observed on the Han and south of it, between 

 longitude 108 30' and 109 30' east, and classed as Middle Paleozoic and 

 Carboniferous. The observations thus agree. 



After crossing the metamorphosed Paleozoic strata, Loczy came upon 

 a broad belt of biotitic schists of monotonous character, with which occur 

 dark amphibole schists and gneiss, chlorite gneiss, and lenses of white 

 granular limestone. These metamorphosed sediments are intruded by 

 massive diorite, coarse-grained amphibole granite, and pegmatite, which 

 locally change the schists to hard, fine-grained gneisses. He classes the 

 complex under the Azoic or Archean formations. They are unconform- 

 ably overlain by slightly coherent conglomerate, sandstone, and shale, of 

 Jurassic age; beyond these super jacent beds reappear quartzitic dolomitic 

 limestone, quartzite, and gray micaceous phyllites of the mctamorphic 

 Paleozoic group; and they are in a short distance again succeeded by a 

 broad zone of monotonous mica schist, amphibole schist, and gneiss, 

 penetrated by eruptives. The main range of the Ts'in-ling-shan is thus 

 reached and is found to consist of the supposed Archean schists and huge 

 intrusions of granite, which extend to the northern margin. 



This zone of gneiss-granite, gneiss, amphibole schist, mica schist, 

 phyllite, and crystalline limestones, intruded by massive coarse-grained 

 granite, corresponds in strike with the Fu-niu-shanf (described in a pre- 

 ceding paragraph), and the petrographic characters of the rocks are sim- 

 ilar to those of that range. The presumption is strong that the area is 

 one of pre-Sinian schists and intrusives. They have not, however, been 

 observed in unconformable relation beneath the Paleozoics, and their pre- 

 Sinian age can not be considered established, in view of the fact that post- 

 Paleozoic metamorphism and intrusion is general elsewhere in the region. 

 Nevertheless, the weight of evidence is in favor of their antiquity, and if 

 it be accepted we must regard the northeastern portion of the Ts'in-ling- 

 shan as consisting of Proterozoic and Archean rocks. As we did not cross 

 any western continuation of the ancient gneisses and granites in longitude 

 108 30', the zone does not extend westward along the face of the range, as 



*Reise des Grafen Szechenyi in Ostasien, vol. i, p. 448 et seq. 

 If Ibid., vol. i, p. 446. 





